A Family Affair
by Midii Une
Summary: or The Tragical Misadventures of Trowa and the Sisters Une: 3x11 3x12 rated R for implied sexual situations and offcolor humor parodies GW cliches


A Family Affair 

(or The Tragical Misadventures of Trowa and the Sisters Une)

A Romantic Farce By Midii Une

(in response to Nightheart's Fanfiction Challenge)

Author's Note: First, Don't kill me because this isn't POR!! I'm just thrilled to be writing anything again and that's a good sign that I might have the confidence to start working on POR soon.  I really need your support!  Secondly, a family relationship between Midii and Lady is strongly hinted at in the epilogue to the Episode Zero manga series and I'm pleased to finally get a chance to explore it, albeit in a comic setting. It's nice to take a tongue in cheek look at a subject I usually take way too seriously.  Forgive me Trowa, you really get shafted in this piece but it is done out of love and devotion to you and GW…Also, I feel that half the credit for this fic should really go to Nightheart, I jump from element to element totally inspired by her challenge parameters, she's practically this story's co-author and I never would have written it without her.

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing does not belong to me!

I'm in enough trouble with the fairer sex already so _never_ tell Miss Relena that I said this.

Peace may be achieved on a universal level but it is a goal that can never be reached in a domestic relationship.

My story starts out badly, becomes even worse, reaches heights of ecstatically painful bliss, plummets to the depths of degradation and ends in a place that even the great author Dante would be unsure whether to describe as Paradise or the Inferno…..

How to begin?  It was the afternoon of my engagement and the two women who felt it was their responsibility to make sure I made a proper appearance were my sister Cathrine and my Preventer partner Sally Po. 

Sally often said she loved to work with a quiet man because it was almost like working alone.  Sally and I got along fine, perhaps because my predecessor was one Chang Wufei.  From her telltale smirk I could tell that Sally was flirting with Wufei over my shoulder as she pushed Cathy aside and straightened my tie.  She clucked a little, the mother hen that lurks in all women coming to the forefront, as she brushed invisible lint from my dark suit jacket.

I felt queasy as she and Cathy exchanged knowing maternal glances and cooed in an odd harmony that almost seemed designed to lull me to sleep.  However, some strange instinct had enough adrenaline pulsing through my veins to give 10 men insomnia.  Something was coming and it wasn't the obvious or anything as mundane as common cold feet.

The obvious was that I was becoming engaged.  The prospect, though not really exhilarating, was a comfortable, almost foregone, conclusion.  We had always admired each other's assets from the moment we met on Space Fortress Barge.  At the time of course we did nothing to assuage that first hint of sexual hunger because of the awkward difference in our age, and frankly, our heights.  Not to mention her inconvenient obsession with the leader of the Dark Forces, err, the Honorable Treize Khushrenada, Sovereign of the World Nation, etc. and so forth.

Once I'd overtaken her in height and our ages were reduced to a slightly risqué older woman-younger man scenario things progressed rapidly, and might I say, lustily?  Our relationship quickly became very serious and headed toward a stable permanent future because Lady wished it.  What Lady wants, she gets.  I didn't mind, I have been a soldier since I was born.  

I kind of liked being commanded, liked calling her ma'am, liked untangling her braids and tossing aside her glasses after a long, grueling day at the agency.  And I more than tolerated being made to take rose-scented baths in the anachronistic Greek Temple.  Lady's temple contained a generously-built hot tub that she'd had constructed on a hill overlooking the dilapidated vineyard.  She was the sole owner of an elegant estate in Germany's breathtaking Rhine Valley.  For some reason that I have yet been unable to determine, my taking that rose-scented bath and pretending to order her around makes her melt like an ice cube on hot pavement.

So at that precise instant, for me, life was fairly good.  Until the party.  Lady insisted on inviting the entire Preventer Agency, of which she was the commander, a reunion of sorts she called it.  She also invited many assorted Unes, whom it seemed she'd ignored in her rise to power since well before the wars of AC 195.

Thus it was that I was standing innocently, well as innocently as a man who's killed hundreds and maimed thousands can stand, by Lady's side.  A butler had just handed me a glass freshly poured from a bottle of the very finest vintage wine.  I was just about to take a sip when my life was turned completely upside down.

I can tell you now that this wasn't the first time _she'd_ done it.

No, not Lady.  Lady stood beside me smiling happily, one hand tucked into the crook of my elbow the other resting on the shoulder of her young ward MarieMaia Barton.  No relation to me of course, though it did send a chill down my spine when the red-headed sprite called me Uncle Trowa and eyed me in the very oddest manner.

No, it wasn't Lady, my newly-announced fiancée who set my heart dropping to my feet, spinning in my stomach and lodging in my throat.

It was _her._

At this moment I feel it necessary to remind everyone of the fact that my friend Heero Yuy had an odd habit during the war of making very random but oddly astute statements concerning various OZ transport vehicles and obscure Alliance medical structures.  Often the rest of us heard him muttering those things over the coms that mysteriously linked our brains and allowed us to hear what each of us was saying at any given moment and we heard his crazy laughter. Suffice it to say these moments left us all feeling a little bit like maybe _we_ were the normal ones.

Anyway, in this time of relative peace Heero had turned his odd talent, learned at the hands of Dr. J to make him the ultimate weapon, to assessing women.  At least whenever he was able to escape the small, possessive hand of Miss Relena.  And if she's reading this, even though I specifically designated that she should not, let me say what a lovely, delicate hand it is.  So, as I gaped at the newcomer, my heart traveling sickeningly through my body and draining the blood from my face and the volume from my bangs in one heart-stopping instant, Heero materialized at my side.

"Natural blonde, not from the bottle.  Breasts 38 C cup, from the looks of them they were surgically enhanced by cosmetic surgeon James Crossman at Alliance Military Medical Facility #149870, Marseilles area.  Waist 22 inches, hips—hmmm, let me see, silk dress, doesn't add inches, hips 32 inches.  Target acquired."  

Heero started to prowl slowly toward his assessed prey while I stood my ground, unable to speak or move, simply rooted where I stood.  Thankfully that's when Miss Relena intercepted him and dragged him, err lead him, back toward the tea table.  Quatre had converted her to prohibition it seemed.

Just then Lady let out a little shriek and an embarrassing giggle.

"OOOOh Trowa!! Is that your flute down your pants or are you just happy we're finally official?"

The entire gathering turned as one and stared at me, they all started laughing and it felt like being in a nightmare with me being the object of ridicule, unable to move and on top of everything, seeing _her_ again.

Right at that moment, _she_ also saw me and as I watched the blood drain from her face and the volume seem to dissipate from the waves of hair that softly framed her face I noticed her going through a rapid-fire version of the five stages of grief. First, there was denial that I had found someone else.  Then there was anger, unfortunately she kind of stalled on this step, anger, or in her case, rage.  Her ice blue eyes glittered menacingly and a wicked smile curved her pouting pink lips as she lifted her hand to caress a string of pearls that circled her neck and dipped into the curve of her breasts.  A part of me reacted that I couldn't control, thus initiating Lady's embarrassing flute comment.

I automatically started scanning the skies, dreading a rain of bombs and the descent of hordes of mobile suits.  When she begins playing with her jewelry those are the kinds of things that tend to happen. I know from experience.

But nothing happened and only the flower petals MarieMaia was tossing in bored abandon from her small wicker basket fluttered listlessly in the air.  _She_ just stood there, knowing that she was perfectly framed beneath the white trellis archway rimmed with clumps of pale violet clematis flowers.  She has a way of standing like a small graceful forest creature pausing at the edge of the trees and you capture her just at that moment when she is trying to decide whether to go forward or back.  That was how she looked when I first say her and it was how she looked now. Well, taking into account the completely accurate truth of Heero's assessment and the fact that I was well past puberty she looked a whole lot better.

Poetic isn't it?  Lady says I can be quite poetical at such times but I'm quite sure Commander Une wouldn't approve the object of my poetry.  Because of course we have just become irrevocably engaged.

Then it happened as I knew it would.  Duo Maxwell started to misbehave.

"Duo! Put that rubber chicken away," Hilde, his long-suffering girlfriend, yelled in the voice she used to shout at her junkyard employees.  Suffice it to say every man at our elegant party cringed and looked about guiltily.  "You promised to leave it at home!"

Duo ignored Hilde's nagging and grasped the hideous object about the head, squeezing it so the beak moved as he clucked and pecked at Hilde's neck.

In irritation Hilde, for the millionth time, threw up her hands and told Duo in a no-nonsense voice:  
  


"It's all over pal!"

As she disappeared into the midst of her female compatriots, Cathy and Sally among them, I heard her murmur, "Women really rule the world, the men just don't know it!"

All her friends nodded agreement and disappeared into what is commonly called a group hug.

That's when _she_ made her move.

"I think bringing a rubber chicken to such a lovely party is a sign of great good humor and very obvious good taste," she said in a sweet, sultry voice.  She batted her long black lashes at Duo. She needn't have bothered.  She was female. He was Duo.  'Nough said.

She caressed the rubber chicken suggestively and leaned close to Duo, whispering in his ear.  I saw him blush, before he grabbed her hand and the two of them ran off to where Duo had parked his motorcycle without a look back at me or at Hilde.

That's when Lady's hand on my arm began trembling.  I tore my eyes away from Duo's flight to look at the woman at my side.  Her long brown hair fell, curving gently against her slender shoulders and her big brown eyes were filled with hurt tears that sparkled on her lashes.

What could be wrong?  Had she noticed that my "flute" had not been caused by excitement about the engagement but by another cause completely?  Again I held my breath, my heart pounding in my chest.

"My little sister," she cried, nay, sobbed.  "She hasn't forgiven me, she'll never forgive!  Oh Trowa, go after her, I need her forgiveness before we can get married."

"Your little sister," I asked suspiciously.

"Yes," she sniffed, looking up at my pleadingly.  "My half-sister who disappeared in AC 190.  Her name is Midii.  Midii Une."

"Oh, okay," I said, trying to be nonchalant but actually thrilled to have the opportunity to chase after them and rip Duo's throat out.  "But where did Duo go?"  
  
Hilde shrugged.  Heero shrugged. Quatre shrugged. Wufei scowled and ignored me.

Cathy put a thoughtful finger to her chin and then brightened, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

"Maybe they went to that old weapons bunker that Duo uses to conduct his illicit love affairs," she said, shrugging her shoulders and laughing softly and nostalgically to herself.

As I ran off to find Lady's lost little sister, my own first love, or was she my first deadly enemy, I saw Hilde tackling Cathy and trying to pull her hair out.  I also wondered exactly what I was going to do when I found Midii.  Because suddenly I was like a kid in a candy store.  I wanted Lady and I wanted her little sister Midii. I wanted it all…little did I know then that two Unes were not better than one, or were they? To this day I can't decide…

Anyway, I followed the black skid marks to Duo's hideaway.  As I approached I heard pulsing music throbbing in the air, wafting through the thick rubber blackout curtains at the bunker's small windows.  I heard a rhythmic pounding and a woman's soft gasps and a man's throaty moans.  

Furious with jealousy and curiosity I flung open the door and saw the two of them moving together as one, sweat trickling down the sides of their passionately intent faces.

I couldn't help but watch them and admire. They had such awesome unity and no intricate move seemed beyond them.  They did things I had never seen done before.  Forward and back and up and down and up and down…I almost didn't want it to end, but end it must.

They were playing Dance Dance Revolution.

"That's enough," I shouted as Duo prepared to choose a new dance number. I was angry with myself for having thought they were good.  
  
Duo grinned at me cheekily and threatened, "Oh it's only you Trowa!  Geez I think I'll stake you out into the front lawn by that pole you have shoved up your ass and you can scare away all of the crows in my vegetable garden."  
  
With that I sucker punched him in the stomach, with Duo it never fails, he went down quick and was out cold.  
  
"Nanashi," Midii stated flatly, flicking her ice blue eyes over me with feigned disinterest. She was still breathing heavily so I figured her disinterest was feigned, but maybe that was because she had just been playing DDR with Duo.  
  
"What are you up to Midii," I asked, grabbing her by the upper arms and pulling her close.  
  
She laughed softly. "It's all part of my plan for global domination. I wanted to turn my life around but with you marrying my wretched big sister I have no choice but a life of evil and well, global domination."  
  
I shook my head and pulled her close.  
  
"It's a mistake Midii and it will never work. I read a story just like it in on Fanfiction.net and it just never caught on. Besides I love you," I said, bending to kiss her soft pink lips.  
  
"Really," she said, turning away at the last second.  
  
"Yes," I answered. "I can't help it, you can catch up on all the possible evil schemes imaginable on that web site. It's an invaluable Preventer resource."  
  
"No, not that, mon imbecile! Do you love me," she growled softly, fisting her small hands in my shirt and pulling me close.  
  
"Yes, that too," I whispered, turned on by the fact that she had called me some pet French love name.  I vaguely wondered what exactly imbecile meant, likely it had something to do with the fact that I was a sexy beast. As we fell to the floor in a blaze of passion, gracefully avoiding Duo's inert form, I momentarily forgot about the woman waiting for the two of us at home.  
  
But eventually I remembered Lady, mostly because of the pressing need to get out of Duo's bunker. The place was cold, damp and smelled suspiciously of unwashed socks.  I glared at the culprit but he was still unconscious, either that or he was getting some voyeuristic pleasure out of watching the two of us getting it on!

Besides it was hard to look meaningfully into her luminous eyes during the afterglow because somehow, during the heat of our moments together, her elbow must have smacked repeatedly into the select arrow on the DDR mat and now the game console was blaring out the same obnoxious tune (pick one) over and over.  Once in awhile the announcer would shout Awesome! Or You're a Legend! Or Keep it Going.  I'm a sexy beast but even I can only keep it going so long.  

"We have to go," I ventured, hoping against hope that she wouldn't be obstinate.

"Why," she pouted.  "I like it here," she added unreasonably.  "Besides where would we go?"

Her delicate fingers started reaching to caress her necklace so I took immediate action and cradled both her small hands in mine.  After all that time and the new intimacy of our relationship she still scared the shit out of me and I knew she wouldn't like what I was going to say.

"Lady's waiting for us.  She wants you to forgive her."

"I will _never_ forgive my sister.  Her sins against me can _never_ be forgiven.  I despise her," Midii hissed in a venomous voice.

"Dare one ask just what happened between you," I queried.

Midii looked at me quizzically for a second, her soulful blue eyes seemed to ask why I was speaking in such an odd manner, then her attention turned back to her own problems.

"Lady was the oldest.  She was Daddy's favorite!  She got to work for the 'Specials' while I had to settle for the Alliance," she sniffed, tears starting to stream down her pale, porcelain cheeks.

She was crying stormily now and finding it hard to continue.  I held her close in sympathy.  It wasn't bad because I got to cop a feel now and then as she continued to weep in my embrace.

"And there's one more thing," she finally hiccupped softly.

What," I prompted, nearly fearing to discover what horrible thing Lady had done to her little sister.  She was capable of a lot certainly.  In fact she confessed to me once that only Heero's quick action stopped her from blowing up a school full of spoiled, rich, snobby kids that eventually grew up to be some of the greediest corporate minds now running (not to mention scamming) the universe.

Finally poor Midii found the strength to speak again.

"Daddy never got me a pony," she wailed finally.  "Lady had two ponies, Black Star and Strawberry Shortcake, but Daddy never got me one.  I really, really hate her!!"

With a resiliency that startled me Midii suddenly cheered up in an about face that reminded me of nothing more than her sister the first time we'd met.  Then Lady had gone from calm and assured to a quivering jelly of confusion and self-doubt.  Now Midii had just transformed from a quivering jelly of thwarted childishness and immaturity to a calm and assured woman.

"You're right of course," she said.  "I must go home and confront my sister, after all it's as much my home as it is hers. We'll clear up this engagement mess and everything will be perfect won't it Nanashi?"

"Trowa," I said.

She blinked at me.  "Whatever, Nanashi."

The party had continued in our absence.  Preventers never abandon their commander and besides there was still plenty of caviar to consume and champagne to be drunk.  Everyone but Duo was accounted for.

We stood together in front of Lady, who beamed at Midii with the same radiant smile she always gave MarieMaia.  The creepy kid stuck close to Lady, no doubt anxious not to let Midii get the upper hand.  She never forgot just how close she had come to actually ruling the world, luckily she had never been allowed to read the important military documents that showed just how narrow of a defeat her army had suffered or she might have tried again.

In an effort to break the tension I gently pushed Midii forward a bit as we all stood awkwardly in the parlor.

"She followed me home," I quipped, trying to shatter the icy formality between them.  "Can we keep her?"

No one laughed at my little joke but it did have the desired effect of getting the conversation between the two estranged sisters going.

"You came Midii!  I'm so glad.  You see I've been wanting to ask your forgiveness for everything that happened during the war.  I was so confused much of the time, but now that you're here I'm sure we can—"

Midii broke into Lady's affectionate speech with irritated impatience.

"I'm not here to reconcile with you!  You can never be forgiven for all the things you've done.  I'm here to claim my rights to this house and to Nanashi," she said, crossing her arms over her Alliance-manufactured chest and smiling challengingly at her older sister.

"Err, Nanashi?  I don't know who you mean," Lady said.  "Was he one of the ponies you were always whining about?"

"No, he wasn't a pony," Midii said.  "I mean him."

She pointed at me of course.  I felt like crawling underground.  For the second time today everyone was staring at me and I hated being the object of so much unwanted attention.

Lady lifted one of her elegantly-arched brows and rose to meet Midii's challenge.

"Oh my dear sister, you are in for a disappointment.  We're engaged and the date is set.  How could you love him anyway if you only set eyes on him today?  He's a hunk no doubt, but not of the caliber of Mr. Treize of course," she said.

"Hey!" I protested vehemently, but neither noticed.  The rest of my protests were choked off by the pressure of a sudden fierce glomping (for want of a better word). Midii had leaped on me and was clinging to my chest and arms so tightly I could barely breathe.

"You couldn't be more off base," she cried, hugging me tighter if that was possible.  "I've loved him for years.  I gave him my heart when I was 10 years old for Chrissake!  Beat that kind of devotion you militaristic bitch.  I saw him first and he's mine.  Half this house is mine.  You owe me for everything I've ever suffered because of you."

I think that when Midii called Lady a militaristic bitch that all hope of reconciliation was lost.  Quatre sidled up to me and whispered sympathetically in my ear.

"Two such dangerous women! You sure are brave Trowa," he said

"Well what about you and Dorothy," I countered. "She's at least as dangerous a Lady and Midii."  I said, anxious to stand up for them even though they were getting quite scary, I guess that's true love times two.

"She's a sweet girl, if you take off the implements of destruction and the massive property damage that seems to always follow in her wake," Quatre said, his aquamarine eyes resting lovingly on his 'sweet girl.'  I guess she really wasn't that bad as long as she wasn't wearing the Zero System helmet, truthfully without it she was all talk.

I turned my attention back to Lady, who was about to really open a can of worms.

"Listen Midii, I've slept with him and you haven't so that's all there really is to it," she said, speaking slowly as if Midii were stupid and wouldn't understand.

Oh no, oh no, oh no, I was really going to be in for it…

"Of course I've slept with Nanashi. My body is still tingling from his electric caresses," Midii revealed happily, beaming with a feeling of superiority.

"You little tramp and your two-bit boob job!!  You seduced him," Lady shouted, her eyes narrowing and glinting more insanely than I'd ever seen them.  Now I knew what General Septem had seen in his last seconds of life and it wasn't pretty.

"My boob job was done by the best in the business and I've been very pleased with the results," Midii retorted, face flushed furiously.

"I was pleased too," I found myself saying, too late to stop myself.

Lady turned angrily upon me when suddenly everyone's attention was pulled from the scintillating sight of two beautiful women preparing to scratch each other's eyes out to the equally entertaining sight of a horse and rider appearing mysteriously at the fourth floor parlor window.

"Ohhhh," everyone, including Midii, gasped.  They bolted toward the window as if fleeing a sinking ship.

It was Heero of course.  Since the war he could never long tolerate not being the center of attention.  Therefore he was showing off by jumping one of Lady's thoroughbreds as high as the poor creature could go.  

"I've heard there's a first time for everything but I can't imagine him doing THAT with the horse he rode in on," this from one of Relena's entourage of social-climbing friends who never ceased amazement at Heero's superhuman equestrian skills.  "Actually I'd like to imagine him doing something like that with me."

"Back off or you'll be sorry," Relena threatened, her cerulean blue eyes cold and menacing.

"But Miss Relena," her groupie gasped.  "I thought you were a pacifist! You wouldn't really hurt me?"  
  
"When it comes to Heero I'm not a pacifist…I'm passive aggressive," Relena said.

Which just goes to show love always overcomes philosophy.

Lady had seen it all before and was much harder to impress. She took the opportunity when Midii was distracted by Heero's performance to order me upstairs to her boudoir to talk in private.  I agreed, when she gave a direct order I couldn't say no.  One of the things I loved about her.

Once up in the bedroom however I suddenly wished she had chosen the hot tub for our talk, in there I made the rules and she followed.  In the bedroom it was a different story, I was helpless and she gave the commands.  Crap, bad strategy Trowa, bad strategy.  Distracted as I was by analyzing my own bad strategy, which is a weakness of mine, I was roused from my thoughts by the snap of an electroshock collar around my neck.

"How could you sleep with Midii?  She's my younger sister and you knew it.  It's almost like incest," she scolded.

Aaaah, not incest!  Totally untrue and unfounded rumors of an incestuous relationship between myself and Cathrine still haven't died out in the fanfiction community and now this.  Now hear this everyone, we _are_ brother and sister, go read Episode Zero for the love of HeavyArms.

Ahem, well at this point you may be wondering why I, being a Gundam pilot, couldn't easily escape a room without being effected much by an electroshock collar.  I thought so too and I did accomplish it once, but OWWWW, it really, really hurt. Something in my brain just won't let me do it again.  Thinking about that time, I whimpered softly and sat obediently on the edge of the bed, my eyes lowered humbly to the carpet where I studied the tips of her black patent leather shoes. Hmm, was that her white lace underwear I could see reflected in them?  Just when I was beginning to think this might end up quite pleasurably she moved away.  When I dared to glance up I noticed her robotically braiding her hair as she looked in the long oval mirror standing in the corner.  

I knew then that I had to get out of the situation, but no, OWWWW, remembered pain, couldn't move…

In a flying leap she had straddled me on the bed. I was trapped.

"Now Lieutenant," she began, she always called me Lieutenant even though I never was one, when she was wearing braids.  "Now Lieutenant you are going to drop that disgusting little French tart and marry me aren't you?  End of discussion!"

At that moment Midii appeared at the doorway, she must have finally torn her attention from Heero's astounding horsemanship and discovered that we had disappeared.

"Oh, this is disgusting.  You're into being dominated. Well fine, I'll give you an order my little soldier boy: Nanashi get out here right now and run away with me!!!"

I just whimpered, pain, remembered pain….

"She's kind of protective," I finally gasped.  "Just help me out of this electroshock collar and…"

I heard Dorothy Catalonia cackling as she joined Midii in the doorway.  

"Oh dear," she said.  "Poor Trowa's stuck behind his invisible fence like the good little pet he is. You're just Lady's dog wagging his tail, or are you the tail being wagged by the dog?"

She laughed at her own joke.  I snarled at her and wished to attack her but no, OWWWW , remembered pain…

"How can you be so cruel," Midii asked Lady, tears streaming down her lovely, pale cheeks.  

Everyone had followed her and Dorothy to Lady's boudoir.  Great, now everyone had seen me in the electroshock collar.  If I survived this day I'd never live it down.  The whole group looked sympathetically at Midii, she was great at getting people to feel sorry for her.  

"You always got everything, from the ponies, to this house to our father's love.  Because of you I had to become a spy and hurt people.  I deserve Nanashi."

"Ha!  That's only half the story," Lady said.  "It's all your fault that I've been cursed with two personalities."

They stood glaring at each other and I could see the group of my friends trying to decide which woman was in the right.  Finally both women looked at me and Lady spoke at last.

"Well! Say something Lieutenant," she ordered.

"And here I thought you liked my meditative pauses," I said softly, stalling her and giving myself more time to think.  I had a reputation for always saying something right on target and very touching at just the proper moment.  Then I realized something.

"Both of you are lying," I said, looking at them from sad emerald green eyes.  "Nothing either of you have said today is canon."

"Canon?' they said together.

"I mean nothing is true to the Gundam Wing storyline.  You Midii betrayed me not because of Lady but to get enough money to feed your sick father and three little brothers.  You Lady have two personalities because of your feelings for Treize," I informed them smugly.

"Ohhhh," the gathered onlookers gasped, impressed by my knowledge of GW back story.  But hey, I had actually lived it.  There was even a gratifying spattering of applause.

"Oh it's canon all right," Lady said finally.  "You only know half the story."

"Yes," Midii agreed, finally they agreed on something.  "The writer's can't tell everything you know. You must realize that there are situations that occurred before the storyline that had a great impact on our personalities and future actions."

They sounded very much like real sisters at that moment and I almost felt the faint sting of tears in my eyes.

"My mother died when I was very young and Father hired a low-class French governess named GiGi to look after me," Lady told us.  "It's rather cliché of course but she and Father had an affair.  When she became pregnant with Midii he married her.  It ruined my life and was the start of my split personalities, my relationship with Treize was the final straw but the beginnings came from that childhood shock. Father tried everything to make me happy after that.  He even gave me two ponies, Strawberry Shortcake for my saintly moods and Black Star for my more militaristic times.  However it didn't help.  Midii and her mother had stolen part of my father's love and she was always jealous and whining!"

"Awww," everyone said, looking at Lady admiringly.  She had won the favor of the crowd and we all looked at Midii judgmentally.

"That's not the whole story either," Midii was quick to add.  "My mother also died when I was young, shortly after my three little brothers Armand, Louis and Lestat were born."

We all looked at her blankly.  What odd names for three little boys, and they sounded very unoriginal as if we'd heard them somewhere before.

"Well," she explained, sensing everyone's discomfort.  "After my mother became Lady Une she spent all her time laying about eating bon bons and reading Anne Rice novels."

"Ohhhhhh," everyone said, nodding understandingly.

"Anyway, after mother died Lady left home to join the Specials," Midii continued.  "I was only 8 at the time but I guess it was probably when one of her militaristic moods was upon her.  We never heard from her again.  Daddy grew ill from worry and then one day we were informed that the estate had been taken away from us because we were traitors.  It was all because of her.  She had ruined our family out of spite because Daddy had fallen in love with my beautiful mother.  We were poor and I was forced to spy for the Alliance so we could live!"

"Awwwwww," everyone said, their sympathy instantly switching to Midii's side of the fence.

"I have the solution to your problem ladies and I'm sure it will be something lovely to behold," Dorothy announced, she had been watching the acrimony unfold with avid interest.  With that she tossed Lady and Midii each an untipped fencing foil that she pulled from hammerspace.

"You should duel for his love!  It'll be beautiful," Dorothy said, clasping her hands between her breasts.  I briefly wondered if they were real or not and if she'd been to the same Alliance surgeon Midii had.  Probably not, Heero would definitely have mentioned it. But soon my attention was pulled back to the two loves of my life.

"Not fair," Midii cried, backing away from the menacing tip of Lady's blade.  "Daddy never got me fencing lessons."

Duo had finally arrived back at the party and was acting as booky, taking bets on which of the Une sisters would end up victorious.

They fought, a furiously blurred frenzy of parries and repartees, and Midii actually held up pretty well. Suddenly she had Lady backed against the wall.  

"But of course I spied on your lessons with Monsieur D'Artagnan, the fencing master, and learned everything you did," she announced smugly.  Lady fought her back and the battle went on more fiercely than before.

By this time my loyal friend Quatre had come in and at last removed the electroshock collar.  I gingerly crept thought the doorway, the lingering memory of remembered pain in my subconscious slowing me a bit.

  
"Stop, I'm not worth it.  I'm nothing but a redundant soldier," I said, hastily groping for something to say to make them stop short of killing each other.  

"Yes, you shouldn't be fighting at all," Quatre chimed in. 

They ignored us, intent on their duel and it was then I realized something.  It wasn't even about me.  Sibling rivalry takes precedence even over the love of a good man.

I walked away, hands in pockets, to go and brood, alone, always alone, in my circus trailer.

Alone, as I was, I found myself jotting and doodling lyrics to sad, lonely songs. I wrote such things as Love is a Shooting Star, and the word lonely featured in it over and over.

Lonely.

Then one day when I was really lonely, the phone rang.

It was Midii!  I was really happy to see her face on the vidcom, I had been so horny, I mean lonely.

"Oh Nanashi, I'm expecting our child," she announced.  It seemed she had forgiven and forgotten my abandonment.  Quatre and Cathy had informed me that her duel with Lady had ended in a draw.

I raced over to the OB-GYN offices in a nearby town to meet her.  The nurse looked me up and down as I stood next to my petite, pregnant lover.  

"And let me guess, they call you Little John," she joked, grinning at my height.  Midii stood up for me, rubbing her cheek lovingly against my elbow, which was as high as she stood next to me

"There's nothing small about Nanashi," she purred contentedly.

Before Midii could reveal more details about me to the interested nurse the doctor called us in and it was all true.  We were going to be parents. I heard my child's heartbeat and saw the little product of our love on the ultrasound screen. I cried sparkly tears as I noticed the small heart beating like a butterfly's wings.  My decision was made for me.  It was Midii, my sweet, innocent little first love. She was right.  She HAD seen me first.

For a very brief moment I was at peace.  We walked carefully down the steps of the doctor's office. I held her elbow protectively, she was happily clutching her bag of prenatal vitamins and instruction books, as well as the cute little black and white image of our microscopic bundle of joy when my cell rang.

It was Sally.

"Get to HQ now Trowa," she hissed.  "Lady's gone crackers, we're terrified in here! She's got one half her hair up in a braid and the other loose and frankly we're scared.  In a word—HELP!  You're the only one who has a chance of calming her down, Heero's on vacation."

I had to help my comrades.  Luckily Midii was lost in maternal bliss so I was able to deposit her with Cathy for safe-keeping.  I ignored the look of terror the mother of my child gave me when my sister forced her into a rocking chair, started cooing over her and offering soup. But I had to help my friends and I knew she'd be safe, if not happy, with Cathy.

With excruciating slowness I tread up the forty floors of stairs to Lady's penthouse office at Preventer HQ.  If I'd used her private elevator she'd have known I was coming and probably prepared the portable electroshock collar she kept in her office.

Hours later I arrived at the top floor.  My co-workers gave me harried looks that were a mixture of fear of Lady and gratitude that I had come to save them.  My face paled as I heard a terrifying combination of laughing and crying from inside her office.  I dared to peep through the keyhole and Sally was right, she had reverted to some odd combination of her two personalities—saint and colonel.

Tender feelings for my dear Lady returned.  I had first felt attracted to her on such an occasions, the one I mentioned earlier on Space Fortress Barge.  Her vulnerability at such times really played on my heartstrings.  I momentarily forgot about the sweet little mother-to-be I'd left at the mercy of my obsessively coddling sister and rushed in to be at the side of my beloved ex-fiancee.

"Darling!  What's wrong," I cried, cradling her trembling form in my strong, muscular arms.

Sobbing, she pulled a small white stick with a bright blue tip from her top desk drawer and showed it to me.

"Oh," I said, as she fell back into my arms and cried in a burst of hormonal spontaneity all over my shirt.

"Lady's just pregnant, we're going to be all right everyone," Sally announced.  I could hear the sounds of the female Preventers beginning to plan baby showers and quilting bees.  My head started reeling and I felt cold, so cold.

Quatre appeared by my side, as always he was there for me as soon as I needed a best friend. I seriously hoped he planned to blow me up and send my injured, amnesia-wracked body out to float in space because suddenly I was in a whole lot of trouble and right back where I'd started six weeks before.

"Wow Trowa, your sexual prowess is amazing.  I'm really impressed!  You got two women pregnant at once," he said, pumping my hand enthusiastically as if some of my prodigious testosterone might rub off on him.  He kind of needed it I was forced to admit.

"Yeah," I agreed half-heartedly, Midii's pet name for me springing to mind.  "I'm a real imbecile."

"Uh, yeah, that too," he agreed, eying me oddly.

"Quatre, I think I need help and fast," I said in a very small voice.

"Oh, yes, let me think," he said kindly. I was hopeful, for after all Quatre was our finest strategist.

"I've got it," he said finally, beaming at me.  "Trowa, I'll adopt you and everything will be fine."

So that's how I became a Winner.  Of course, being a Winner I was entitled to the Arabic hereditary right of polygamy which is available to no other ethnicity on the Earth or colonies.

Thus ends our story.  I may not enjoy domestic bliss, but then again I'll never be lonely, though there are times I pray for a moment to myself.  Soon our little family of three will be five, six including Mariemaia.  I just hope our children get along better than their mothers do.  Just in case, we shall have a weapon-free household and everyone will have their own pony.  Also I signed a pre-marital agreement with Lady never to hire a French governess.  

Hmm, I think I've learned something from all this, as Quatre's only brother I think I'll sue him for part of his inheritance in order to support my lovely wives and our future offspring.  After all, I had a terrible childhood…

The End

  
  
  
  



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